Traditional Affiliates vs Media Buyers: Which Should You Start With First

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When launching an affiliate program, one of the first strategic questions is simple but critical:
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Should you start with traditional affiliates or move directly into working with media buyers?

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Both affiliate types can drive meaningful revenue, but the order in which you prioritize them can have a major impact on your program’s early results. For most brands, the best place to start is with traditional affiliates. They provide a strong foundation on which you can build before introducing media buyers to scale.

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What Are Traditional Affiliates

Traditional affiliates promote products through owned or organic channels. They do not spend their own money on ads. Instead, they rely on their existing audience, content, or platform to generate sales.

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Common types of traditional affiliates include:

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- Content sites such as blogs and review websites

- Influencers and creators with loyal audiences

- Coupon and deal partners

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These affiliates grow steadily over time, focusing on targeted, recurring traffic.

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They may not scale overnight, but they help build a stable and predictable revenue base, especially for direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands launching their first affiliate program.

What Are Media Buyers

Media buyers are affiliates who use their own money to run paid ads to their affiliate links. They earn through arbitrage, generating traffic at a lower cost than the commission they receive.

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For example, if you pay a media buyer fifty dollars per acquisition, they will aim to acquire customers for less than fifty dollars through platforms like Meta, Google, or TikTok. The difference becomes their profit.

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Because media buyers can scale quickly, they have the potential to generate large sales volumes.

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However, they also require more structure, experience, and preparation to work with effectively.

Why Traditional Affiliates Are the Best Starting Point

When launching a new affiliate program, simplicity and stability are key. Traditional affiliates offer both.

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- Lower barriers to entry

- Easier to recruit through organic outreach, partner networks, and affiliate platforms

- Fewer legal, compliance, and operational complexities than media buyers

- Flexible payment terms, like revenue share, reduce financial pressure on the brand

- Steadier Growth Curve

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Traditional affiliates rely on owned or organic traffic, which makes performance predictable.
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This allows your team to learn affiliate management step by step, build long-term relationships, and develop recurring revenue.

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Commission Models: Revenue Share vs CPA

Another advantage of starting with traditional affiliates is flexibility with payout structures.

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Traditional affiliates often work on revenue share or lower commission rates. They are more willing to grow alongside your brand.

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Media buyers typically demand fixed CPA payouts and clear margins from the start, which can create early financial pressure.

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Starting with traditional affiliates helps keep your unit economics lean while you build your program.

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The Media Buyer Challenge: What You Need First

Media buyers can be powerful once your offer and infrastructure are ready. Before bringing them on, make sure you have:

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1. A competitive CPA or payout that allows them to run profitably

2. High-converting landing pages and funnels (conversion rate of 3% or higher)

3. Bundles and upsells to increase average order value

4. An experienced affiliate manager or team to support their needs

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Without these elements, media buyer partnerships often don’t last.

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Common Mistakes When Launching an Affiliate Program

One of the biggest mistakes new affiliate program managers make is jumping straight to media buyers without the proper foundation. 

Here are common mistakes:

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1. Offering payouts that aren’t competitive for media buyers

2. Lacking optimized funnels and landing pages

3. Overcomplicating partnerships before mastering the basics

4. Failing to invest in affiliate recruitment early

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The result is wasted time, burned budget, and slower growth.

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A Strategic Progression Timeline

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A structured, phased approach helps build a sustainable affiliate program.

This timeline mirrors what many top affiliate agencies use to help D2C brands grow strategically.

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The Scaling Advantage of Media Buyers

Once your program has strong conversion rates, proven offers, and reliable systems, media buyers can accelerate growth fast.

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Traditional affiliates are limited by their audience size. Media buyers can scale by increasing ad spend as long as the economics work. That’s how we helped a client add $30,000 in GMV in 3 months.

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Conclusion

If you're launching a new affiliate program, the path forward is clear: start with traditional affiliates. They're easier to manage, more forgiving with commission structures, and provide the perfect training ground for learning affiliate management. 
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Build your program steadily over the first 6-12 months, establish recurring revenue, and optimize your offers and conversion rates.

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However, suppose you already have someone with experience working with media buyers, high-converting landing pages and funnels are in place, and you can offer competitive payouts. In that case, media buyers might be a viable option from the start. 

For everyone else, keep it simple, start with traditional affiliates, and graduate to media buyers once you've built a solid foundation.
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If you are ready to build your affiliate program strategically, book a strategy call with our team to launch strong and scale with confidence.

Just click the ‘Let’s Connect’ button to get started.

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